problem with setting COLUMNS environmental variable

[Faheem Mitha <faheem@email.unc.edu>]

Dear People,

I have had some problems setting the COLUMNS environmental variable. This
is used to change the width of the display in "dpkg -l". it may be used
for other things too, I wouldn't know. This appears to default to 80, but
when I tried to change this in my .bashrc by putting

export COLUMNS=200

it is ignored on login. i've never had this happen before. 

I can change this manually by doing ". .bashrc", but when I run some "dpkg
-l" command, I find COLUMNS has been changed back to 80. Can anyone
suggest what to do or where COLUMNS is set? It must be set somewhere.

My dpkg version is 

||/ Name           Version        Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii  dpkg           1.6.15         Package maintenance system for Debian


Thanks in advance. Please CC me, I'm currently not subscribed to the list.

                              Sincerely, Faheem Mitha.